


We Were Young Gods

by spoken



Category: DBSK | Tohoshinki | TVfXQ | TVXQ, SM Entertainment, Super Junior
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-25
Updated: 2015-03-25
Packaged: 2018-03-19 13:22:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3611601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spoken/pseuds/spoken
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Theirs starts out as a life of quick-seeing eyes and sharp minds attuned only to the blood-tipped need for survival. Only the determined, the reckless and the dreamers hope for something more.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> An exercise in lightly re-writing one of my longest fanfics and reposting it for new audiences. Original here: http://wry-me.livejournal.com/7461.html.

1\. Jaejoong walks into their territory at eighteen, eyes still not adjusted to the world of spindly towers looming, all glass and shining spires into the limitless sky. He has a battered guitar, slung over his back like a life-raft. It’s a present from his sisters. Play in the event of an emergency.

They descend on him like a storm, a faceless mass of shifting power and hidden agendas.

“Come, we’ll make you a god,” they whisper. Their voices spark and undulate, both an irresistible promise and unspoken threat. 

Jaejoong says, “Just let me see my family one last time.”

They take him anyway.

 

2\. Jaejoong meets Yunho as the latter is stealing a T-shirt from the middle of a laundry line slung high across a dirty alleyway that reeks of the sickly smell of alcohol, spilling from overturned crates.

In the colour of the silvery moon shining behind them, everything about the alleyway and the boy within it seems otherwordly. Yunho moves like a cat, dancing along the wires with a snap of muscle and liquid turn of the head. When he jumps and lands onto the roof of the building opposite to where Jaejoong is standing, he doesn’t make a sound.

He doesn’t turn back, so their gazes don’t meet; there is no red thread connecting the two or any whisper of a prophetic meeting, but Yunho’s profile is proud, fierce and beautiful in the silver light, and it’s something Jaejoong never forgets.

 

3\. The city of theirs is a city of monsters, filled with battered buildings and people being swallowed up by the gaping jaws of anonymity lurking in the dark alleyways. It's lit in the day by dull, grey light and the movements of grim-faced adults barely clinging onto survival in the misty streets, after-hours.

They promised they’d make Jaejoong a god, but if they have, it hardly seems to matter as he is gifted with bruises and words spat through jeering mouths of the steely-eyed youths who run rampant through the streets, howling anarchy to the overcast skies. Theirs is a life filled with the sandy, grimy film of dirt clinging to the creases of their clothes like armour; quick-seeing eyes and sharp minds attuned only to the blood-tipped need for survival. Nothing moves to clockwork. The monsters are real - reptilian and furred beasts with leery smiles leave tar-like substances seeping from cracks in the walls; cowed by daylight into the sewers and the cold bite of sharpened steel that guard each run-down home. Steel, wood and stone, now that bullets are too expensive to be used by anyone in these parts. As night settles around the misty streets, people disappear, and they don’t come back.

 

4\. It's the end for sure this time. Jaejoong is weak and cornered, trying to make himself as small as possible in the small brick alcove, his guitar clutched in his shaking hands, the old knife he carries for protection lying uselessly several meters away where he had dropped it in the struggle. The stench of the monster stings at his nose and eyes - it's a big one, a dangerous one - mixing with the tears of regret stinging at the corners of his eyes; if only he had not done that extra delivery, if only... 

Jaejoong can feel every infinitesimal shift of muscle, tendon and bone in his hand as the strings dig into his palm, leaving indents deep enough to bruise.

If the stench gets stronger, he’ll be close enough to swing out with his left arm; throw the shield or smash it against where he imagines the monster's face is. It may splinter in the monster’s face. It may give him a split second to survive.

It’s his guitar.

“Junsu!” someone yells.

The night is rent apart with sound and movement.

The next moments are blurry, the sound flickering in and out of Jaejoong’s ears like he’s underwater and breaking the surface in desperate gasps of air and reality. He’s dimly aware of breaking from his alcove, the action as difficult as pushing through an oppressive summer heatwave, stumbling on the rough stone floor, his muscles screaming _run_ , the sickening, heartbreaking crack of his guitar and, above him, shadows dancing and connecting with the impact of bullets. Impact upon impact.

The monster screams.

When Jaejoong opens his eyes, he’s covered in blood, metallic and sticky and reeking of death. If he had managed to fool himself in thinking he had been granted immortality, he’s certain it’s gone now. He’s just cold, weak and mortal, and probably has been all along.

Backlit by the moonlight, the group of boys before Jaejoong stand like heroes. The tallest of the group bends down and offers a bandaged hand. The end of the bandage is unravelling. Jaejoong is suddenly reminded of the moon, laundry lines and dancing; the smells of wet dirt and rain breaking through the sky gradually cuts through the blood.

“Are you okay?” the boy asks. Jaejoong hesitates.

“You’re one of those,” another speaks from the group. He has solemn eyes, half hidden by the hood draped over his head. The knives in his hands slide out of his belt like quicksilver. “They promised they’d make you a god.”

Jaejoong swallows, unable to keep the bitterness from seeping into his hoarse reply. "Promised. Yeah.”

The boy hands him a knife, blade first, unsmiling. It’s still cold with murder. “Are you?”

“Junsu-” someone says hesitatingly.

Jaejoong thinks about the splintered pieces of wood on the ground and fights back a wave of nausea. “A-Am I what?”

A line between the eyes of the boy known as Junsu appears as he raises an eyebrow and Jaejoong knows what he's asking. 

It feels like it takes an eternity for Jaejoong to grasp the knife - cold metal that his fingers curl around. Nothing happens. The knife remains a knife – sharp and expectant in Jaejoong’s hands. For all he had prided himself on his street smarts; his ability to slip, unnoticed, through a busy throng of people, and the catalogue of false identities he had given suspicious shopkeepers, to hostile bosses, to enraged gangs who had torn through his neighbourhood demanding money, Jaejoong feels young, new, and humiliated.

The crooked half-grin that appears on Junsu's face as he takes the knife back doesn’t suit him. “Okay, you’re good. Come with us.”

 

5\. “Why did you ask me that?” Jaejoong asks Junsu when it’s all over.

Junsu’s eyes betray the fact he’s almost forgotten about those times. Their early days have been razed through by so many years of immortality.

“Maybe because you looked like you still believed,” he says eventually, “that you were a god.”

 

6\. The only way to get to their apartment is to climb up the rusty fire escapes and enter through the window because front of the building pretty much consists of empty space where the stairs had once been. It’s small, cramped and smells like sweat, blood and dirty clothes. Jaejoong spends several weeks sleeping on top of a stack of old shirts and the remnants of curtains that they've dug up, until he's saved up enough money to buy himself an old sleeping bag. There are six of them – Junsu, Yunho, Youngwoon, Heechul, Sungmin and Hyukjae.

Jaejoong still doesn’t dare speak to most of them; just steer around them with respectful silence.

There are others living downstairs – Jaejoong catches glimpses of people he only knows theoretically and is unable to match names to faces – Jungsoo, Donghae, Kibum, Jongwoon, and then some girls he’s glimpsed vaguely from apartments in adjourning neighbourhoods - Sica, Hyoyeon and Sulli.

Yunho doesn’t speak much to Jaejoong at first, but he’s teaches Jaejoong how to fight. It's hard, gruesome work but it results in late afternoons, honeyed with golden sunlight, sitting side by side on the rusty platform of the fire escape, their legs dangling in the open. It results in conversations that Jaejoong realises he treasures more and more - just the two of them, sweaty, exhausted and aching and thoughtful words being passed between them like the battered old water flask that Yunho carries.

“Everyone here is busy but no one knows where they're going,” Yunho says, a few months later when Jaejoong can recognise a temper on Youngwoon's face, when he knows that Hyukjae misses his sister fiercely but will never admit it, and when he knows that Yunho never looks at people in the eye when he lies. Yunho is not lying now. Practising to stay alive is a given but some of them work for money, some wander the city looking for treasures, others focus on stealing to get ahead. Jaejoong asks why they don’t just leave – back to Jaejoong’s old town (one that he realises he’s already thinking about in past tense), or Yunho’s old city. Yunho’s eyes flicker at this. He indicates the roof. “Come with me.”

Standing on the roof of their building, the city spreads out like a map under them, glinting in corners, endless masses of brown bricks and crumbling spaces that are even more depressing to look at, in context. Yunho raises an arm and points at the skyscraper in the smoggy distance, lording over the maze of dilapidated alleyways and patchwork blanket streets that is their world.

“The people in that tower come for us,” Yunho says softly, almost reverently. Jaejoong isn’t sure he likes that tone. “They say that they’re the ones who really make us gods.”

And so we wait, Jaejoong thinks, with a sudden feeling of clarity and, with it, despair. Those of us still foolish enough, determined enough, to believe we’re worth something more.

 

7\. In between working odd jobs to keep themselves alive, the group fights for a living. Fighting monsters gets you attention and the best pay of all - sometimes they are giant abominations who lurk under the sewers that the city police have no desire to fight themselves or a mutant feral cat terrorising the kitchen of a cafe that requires someone more expendable than the cooks. More often than not, the monsters are not monsters but gangs of wild-eyed boys, with greedy eyes fixed on their house or the sack of rice someone is carrying home. 

Jaejoong is allowed to fight on three occasions. One of them is a noisy street brawl in the middle of the day, full of fists and scuffed knees, and the second is a silent affair in the dead of the night (‘returning a debt’, Heechul says simply as they leave).

Their opponent of the third fight is armed and, even though Jaejoong does tolerably well in the scuffle, he still comes away with a bruised left arm and cuts in places he hadn’t been good enough to dodge. They win after Junsu throws a knife at the enemy leader, who was taking aim with a battered crossbow, dug up from some antique shop. He had been almost half a metre away, but somehow the knife had found its mark and buried itself in the leader’s shoulder with enough force to make the boy drop the bow, reeling back and howling. It’s the first time Jaejoong has noticed the frightening quality in Junsu’s strength as he had readied the knife, something like a spark that jumped through his bones and muscles, adding something more to his attacks. 

Yunho is the one who cleans Jaejoong’s injuries, the two of them sitting outside on the fire escape in the cool night. Everyone else has collapsed, asleep, right after getting back from the fight. Heechul is going to be pissed off that Youngwoon has left blood all over the sheets - more likely than not, Jaejoong is the one who will be washing it though. 

“They were one of the strongest gangs in this city,” Yunho says as he finishes dabbing the blood off a smarting cut on Jaejoong’s elbow and unwinds a bandage, his long fingers moving with practised ease. “If we manage to find another monster and defeat it, I’m sure the people in the tower will take notice of us.”

“Will we find another monster?”

Yunho hesitates a moment before he smiles and says, “Heechul’s theory is that they go after the ones who have the potential to become immortal.”

He looks at Jaejoong and they’re sitting so close that Jaejoong can almost see himself reflected in Yunho’s eyes. “You were being chased by a monster, weren’t you?”

“I bet you were too.”

Yunho blinks and then laughs, embarrassed. “Yeah, I guess so.”

A sudden gust of wind hits them just as the bandage touches Jaejoong’s wound and he draws his arm back with a shiver.

“Sorry,” Yunho says softly, voice gentle. Jaejoong shakes his head, giving his arm back to Yunho. Yunho’s fingers ghost over the purple and yellow bruise on Jaejoong’s bare shoulder and Jaejoong resists the urge to shiver again – though not from the cold. They’re eye to eye.

“Are you hurt anywhere?” Jaejoong breathes, hardly daring to exhale, sensitive to each shallow exhalation that Yunho makes. Yunho looks the same – no cuts, no bruises, not even dirt on his face or in his hair.

Yunho blinks - the moment is lost - but smiles. Shakes his head. “The battles become easier when you figure out how to dodge.”

Seeing Yunho fight is like seeing Junsu throw. There is something more about the way he moves.

Jaejoong doesn’t believe (much) in immortality anymore, but he can see how people like Junsu and Yunho make it possible to believe it can happen. 

 

8\. Heechul disappears for two days without a message or a word, and returns during the middle of a rainstorm with a stranger at his side. They’re both drenched and soaked to the skin, but it’s the first time Jaejoong has seen Heechul take care of someone and the novelty of the concept is enough to prompt Jaejoong to obligingly help sit the stranger against the wall and dry him off.

The boy is so thin that Jaejoong is afraid his shoulders will snap with the weight of the towel; he looks up at Jaejoong with large, hollow eyes filled with a bewildering combination of earnest thanks and weariness. Rain drips off the ends of his hair.

“What’s your name?” Yunho asks gently, sitting down so that he and the stranger are eye to eye. 

The boy looks at Yunho and speaks with soft, halting syllables, rising and falling in the odd places that tells Jaejoong this is not his first language. “My name is Han Geng,” he says.

“Han Geng,” Heechul repeats the name so gently Jaejoong feels like he may have whispered it into cupped hands in the cool light of the early morning. He feels like he should look away, like they're all intruding on a private moment. 

“Geng,” Youngwoon says, as a peal of thunder tears through the sky. He exchanges a look with Sungmin and Junsu - doubtful. _The boy is too thin_ , Youngwoon's eyes telegraph and Jaejoong knows him well enough by now to read it. _More importantly, he's weak_. 

“He was being chased,” Heechul says, glaring a challenge at Youngwoon, "by a monster from the sewers.”

 

9\. Jaejoong dreams of the sky. Of the feeling of air currents pressing against his skin, and the feeling, forms and textures of the spaces around him, forever shifting and changing.

When he wakes up, there is always a tingling numbness throughout his body – miniscule prickles of heat promising something.

“Just stop sleeping in such weird positions,” Youngwoon says irritably when Jaejoong mentions it for the fourth time.

Junsu just looks at Jaejoong, eyes troubled. Yunho swallows, eyes downcast at the table. Later, he tells Jaejoong, “I’ve been getting the numbness too.”

 

10\. Han Geng takes to their new lifestyle in a quiet, steady way. He smiles a lot more than he did, he’s helpful in the absent-minded way of someone who’s always been neat and has had to take care of himself. He’s invaluable in helping Jaejoong cook (because someone has to. Jaejoong had eight sisters who taught him how, and Hankyung makes fried rice that, frankly, tastes amazing given how little ingredients they have), and they teach each other words in their respective languages as Jaejoong tries to kick life into the old gas stovetop and Hankyung washes the vegetables.

Jaejoong teaches Hankyung how to say ‘too expensive’. Hankyung laughs and teaches Jaejoong the word for ‘cheaper’. Jaejoong counters with ‘stingy’. Then Hankyung reaches over, tracing a line down Jaejoong’s elbow, ending at his wrist.

“Shén,” Hankyung says.

“Shén?” Jaejoong repeats, looking down at the veins. “Blood?”

Hankyung shakes his head. Frowns, his eyes faraway for a moment before they focus back on Jaejoong. He traces the line again. “Inside Jaejoong. Shén. God.”

 

11\. Full moon is the only holiday they get: there are no monsters out on full moon, only alley cats looking down from the high wires with shining eyes. Full moon is the time when allied gangs gather around a bonfire, and the air is full with laughing, conversation, crackling music from a second-hand stereo and the few bottles of weak alcohol that someone had managed to steal, borrow or buy. Yunho, Hyukjae and Junsu are leading a dance-off in front of the bonfire with Hyoyeon, Sooyoung, Jungsoo, and a bunch of other boys that Jaejoong doesn’t recognise.

“Come and dance!” Yunho approaches Heechul, Geng and Jaejoong, laughing. It’s the first time Jaejoong has seen him look so unburdened, the usual lines of worry softed by the firelight. Hyoyeon and Youngwoon are laughing at Hyukjae in the background, and Donghae drapes a shoulder over Yunho, a smile breaking on his face.

Jaejoong has been around Geng enough to see the enthusiasm in his eyes, tempered by his nervousness and fear. Heechul gives him a little shove on the small of his back. “Go on.”

Han Geng stands up, follows Yunho to the centre of the bonfire and Jaejoong’s breath catches as Geng closes his eyes, relaxes his shoulders, opens his eyes and begins to dance. Because he’s good – moving with a silky grace that’s sharp at corners with the right amount of power. As good as Hyukjae or Junsu or Yunho. There’s a small beat of silence, then Hyoyeon cheers enthusiastically, everyone joins her, begins dancing, and the night is swallowed by sound and movement.

Sometime as the moon is waning, Jaejoong finds himself sitting next to Junsu, who’s humming along to the radio. It’s the first time Jaejoong hears him sing, and Junsu’s voice is beautiful.

“You played the guitar, didn’t you?” Junsu asks. Jaejoong winces at the past tense. “Do you sing?”

“A little,” Jaejoong says. He recognises the song playing on the radio.

“Sing with me then,” Junsu says, and sings out loud, voice pure and loud, somehow cutting through all the chatter and the roar of the bonfire flames. Jaejoong joins in after only a moment of hesitation and even Heechul falls silent because somehow, miraculously, Jaejoong’s voice is almost as strong as Junsu’s, and they harmonise well.

 

12\. Jaejoong dreams of total darkness and empty voids greedily sucking in air and space. The dreams are filled with the sound of thunder.

 

13\. He wakes up the next day in the middle of an earthquake. Their apartment is trembling and there’s a crushing weight on his shoulders and the feeling of the sky pressing against his heart and he knows, somehow, _this_ is immortality – immortality that is burning fresh and white-hot through his spine, through his veins, reaching with greedy incinerating hands. He can’t find his voice to scream.

What stops the burning is the hand that reaches out and covers his to the ground. Solid, firm, certain. Yunho. The earth stops shaking as though it’s welcoming them home.

Yunho stills. He releases his grip on Jaejoong’s hand, raises his own and moves it slowly across the floor. There is an ominous rumble from below them, moving wherever Yunho's hand moves.

Yunho stares at Jaejoong. Both of them see a mixture of horror and wonder trapped for a desperate, gasping second in the others’ eyes before theirs become the eyes of gods.

 

14\. Junsu’s small pile of belongings have become a pile of ashes. For a second, before he sees the flames circling Junsu like a ring, Jaejoong thinks Junsu’s turned into the black smoke that’s hissing languidly through the air. The god of smoke. The god of fire. Junsu is now immortal, Jaejoong wants to say, as though stating the obvious will make things less frightening, but he doesn’t. 

Hyukjae and Sungmin are backed against the railing of the fire escape. The walls are too hot. They look at Junsu as though they're seeing him for the first time.

Junsu looks up. Meets Yunho’s gaze.

“I’m sorry,” he says. There are no words to pinpoint the emotion trembling beneath his words. “I’m sorry.”

Hyukjae attempts a smile.

 

15\. It doesn’t take Yunho long to find Changmin.

The earth hears everything, Yunho claims, and people are already whispering about the boy who can flood the streets.

“Stop being dramatic,” Youngwoon rolls his eyes and punches Yunho on the shoulder. The earth lurches, and Youngwoon is suddenly on his knees. Heechul laughs, and drags Geng away from the two of them, stumbling a little as the earth settles.

Yunho winces, his eyes serious. “I’m sorry,” he says, bending down and helping Youngwoon up like he’s made of glass.

Jaejoong hasn't counted the number of times Yunho’s apologised over the past four days but he knows it's too many for something that is not Yunho's fault.

 

16\. Changmin wanders solo through the streets, gangly and deer-like with wary eyes.

“He’s lonely,” Yunho says.

“He wants nothing to do with us,” Junsu argues.

Jaejoong wants to say no, Changmin just has no idea what he’s doing, but he remains silent. The crushing pressure against his lungs and throat has not faded over the long weeks as Junsu and Yunho gradually became used to their powers. It hurts to try to speak.

They finally meet him across opposite fire escapes. Changmin’s hand is on an exposed water pipe on the side of the building. Jaejoong knows instinctively that a jet of water could be blasted from the pipe, right at them, as soon as Changmin willed it to do so. It feels like he’s pointing a loaded gun at them, with the safety already off. He asks, “What do you want?”

“We’d like you to join us,” Yunho says.

“We have powers too,” Junsu adds.

Changmin’s gaze meets Jaejoong’s, challenging and defensive. Jaejoong sucks a painful breath into his lungs.

“We have no idea what we’re doing either,” he says, willing his voice to not waver. He looks at Changmin's face; at Changmin's eyes where anger is hiding the panic of being alone. "If you come with us, you’ll eat good food. You'll have friends, you'll have...you'll have a family.”

Changmin blinks. His hand leaves the water pipe by degrees, eyes never leaving Jaejoong’s face. Finally, he asks, “Where do you live?”

 

17\. Two months later, Changmin still gathers food to himself at the table, instinctively curling into himself as he wolfs it all down in a flash, before Yunho scolds him about it. He only flinches slightly at loud sounds and Jaejoong notices that the defensive, wary glare in his eyes has softened slightly, though they still dart around everywhere they enter, assessing and locking down escape routes. But once he starts trying to become part of their group, he’s an enormous help. Changmin can tell which parts of the city that monsters have drunk from, where they have built their nests in the underground sewers and if he concentrates hard enough on overcast days, he can even make it drizzle enough for a bucket of clean water. With his help, the area around their home is free from monsters for the first time.

Youngwoon tells Yunho irritably that they’ll all end up taking three jobs at the rate Changmin’s consuming all their stores of food, but he does so while ruffling Changmin’s hair so the effect is completely lost.

 

18\. And then there are the powers to deal with. It takes awhile for Junsu to stop setting things on fire (though with Changmin on board, it's not too hard to put out though everyone is getting tired of never-quite-dry floors). It takes Yunho a few weeks of extreme concentration to stop causing earthquakes as soon as he starts having bad dreams but, in one way or another, they get used to it. They get used to Jaejoong's silence too. 

“Aren’t you complete?” Heechul asks, one day. “Fire, earth, water. You could rule the world.”

“Jaejoongie’s immortal too,” Yunho says quietly.

“Yeah, but what can he do?” Heechul counters. He’s not looking at Jaejoong – his eyes are turned to the sky and he is thinking in the absolutely focused Heechul way; the kind that blocks people out not because he’s ignoring them, but because he’s not thinking about anything else except the problem. “He can’t fight and he doesn’t even speak anymore.”

Jaejoong winces, because he loves Heechul and Heechul cares for him, but it hurts. Geng meets Jaejoong’s gaze, apologising for Heechul because he’s Geng and he just gets it – gets Heechul. 

To his surprise, Jaejoong feels Changmin touch his arm. The latter smells like rain.

“Jaejoong-hyung’s one of us,” Changmin says firmly, and a small piece of the weight on Jaejoong’s back falls off at the conviction in Changmin’s voice.

 

19\. Yoochun joins them a few days later, as graceful and mysterious as the winds he brings with him. Yoochun comes and Junsu welcomes him into the fold immediately. Many nights, they stay up on the roof of the apartment together instead of sleeping. Jaejoong stays awake too, listening to the howl of wind outside that is Yoochun trying to master his powers under Junsu's guidance and watching the glow of Junsu's flames grow bright, illuminating Yunho and Changmin’s sleeping forms by the window.

Hyukjae is jealous in a quiet, resigned sort of way. Yoochun looks at Jaejoong sometimes with great sadness in his eyes and Jaejoong realises that Yoochun knows, Yoochun understands his silence, but Yoochun doesn’t know how to help him.

 

20\. The five of them are guarding the apartment in the dusky evening – Yunho, Changmin, Jaejoong, Yoochun and Junsu - when there are cries down below, the discordant clatter of iron, broken wood and yells, the sound of running feet, and the unmistakeable chorus of feral shrieking.

Yunho is first on his feet and out the door, with Yoochun not far behind. Changmin and Junsu follow, and Jaejoong does too. He’s almost knocked over by Sungmin, who’s scrambling up the stairs with Jungsoo who has a bloody cut on his forehead, yelling that they need to barricade all the windows.

Youngwoon is fighting off a grotesque monster at the foot of the fire escape, his knife faltering with exhaustion. The concrete gives a great heave below the monster’s feet – it springs aside, hissing, as Yunho leaps down from the stairs, a long carving knife obtained from the butcher’s drawn. Yoochun hauls Youngwoon up by the arm, pushing him further up the fire escape. Jaejoong helps him up, Jungsoo pulls him into their apartment, and another panicked yell makes Jaejoong turn back. Heechul, Donghae and Geng are running towards the stairs, with Hyukjae bringing up the rear, and being chased by a pulsating swarm of small monsters, a mass of hooked beaks, claws and teeth.

Junsu yells Hyukjae’s name – a ripple of flame pulses through the ground and there is a keening cry from the mass of creatures scattering from the heat. Heechul takes the chance to drag Geng, Hyukjae and Donghae up he fire escape, just as Changmin unlooses a jet of water from a pipe with a high pitched screeching of metal – it blasts the monster away from Yunho who scrambles to pick up his knife… the monster stumbles away, shrieking. The swarm ripples, forming a circle around them, hissing and spitting.

Yoochun grabs Junsu as he tries to chase after the swarm, and yells for Changmin and Jaejoong to come down from the stairs. Yunho leaps back from the monster, grabbing onto Changmin for support. They stand shoulder to shoulder – Junsu, Yoochun, Changmin, Yunho. And, behind them, Jaejoong. Gasping through the searing weight in his lungs. Trying not to crumble under the crushing feeling suddenly lining his shoulders, pulling him into a stoop. Still not sure if he’s part of the four immortal beings in front of him.

“We’ll blast them all at once,” Yunho gasps, struggling to catch his breath. His knuckles, gripping his knife, are white and bloody. "Changmin, blast in the opposite direction of Junsu so the water doesn't evaporate."

"I will aim with Junsu," Yoochun says firmly. He turns to Jaejoong, and pulls Jaejoong between him and Changmin. Something in Jaejoong settles into place.

"Jaejoongie, if it gets too much, you need to take everyone and run,” Yunho says through gritted teeth. He has an arm flung out as far as he can in front of Changmin, holding them back as the swarm ripples, draws closer. 

Jaejoong closes his eyes. Thinks suddenly of his guitar. Takes a deep breath.

The swarm rears - and Junsu yells, a stream of fire bursting forth from midair, searing the small creatures at the front, a harsh gale blowing the flames onwards. The ground under the main mass of creatures rumbles, buckles, just as a jet of water blasts skyward from the ground. Jaejoong screams, grabbing Changmin and Yoochun's hands. He can’t hear his own voice, but he can feel the space around him expanding, the pressure on his lungs lifting as he yells. And he can feel the strength of the water increasing, the harsh winds blowing hot air in their faces. He can feel the space above them contract, ripple… _boom_.

There is a plaintive howl from the swarm, the heavy sound of flesh slapping on the concrete ground and, suddenly, the small monsters are just like alley cats, scrambling to escape in the opposite direction, howling and hissing.

Eventually...silence. Jaejoong swallows. “Everything’s okay.” His voice is raspy with disuse.

Yunho’s eyes meet Jaejoong’s, shocked but lit with relief and endless joy.

“Lightning,” Changmin says, voice hoarse.

Junsu coughs out a laugh. When he looks at Jaejoong, there is a genuine smile of incredulity on his face. “Was that you?”

There is a rumble of thunder from the sky as though in response, and Jaejoong closes his eyes as rain begins to fall.

 

21\. The message comes, ridiculously, embossed in gold and smelling of luxuries and far off dreams, wedged into a crack between their broken door and crumbling wall. We welcome you to join us at the great tower, the invitation says, the golden words inside sprinkled with just the right amount of politeness, allure and enthusiasm as the president’s signature curls just so at the bottom of the letter. The tower in the distance, the tower lording over their city. Your new home, the letter says. Your new family. 

None of them are quite ready to believe there’s something more powerful than they are, willing to protect them or offer them something more. Any other situation would have easy enough to refuse, even if they would have had to do some more convincing to get Yoochun on board (Yoochun is the perpetual dreamer, terrified of losing good opportunities and not afraid to let everyone know), but the five of them all pick up the silent threat woven into the blank spaces between the letters, like a thoughtfully quirked eyebrow, daring them to refuse.

The others remain oblivious, and when Jaejoong overhears Junsu trying to explain to Hyukjae why they have to go, it’s the first time the discomfort that has dropped little by little in his stomach coalesces into dread. They are gods, they are marked, they are different, and Jaejoong isn’t sure this is a good thing.

 

22\. Heechul tells Yunho fiercely that they need to come back if anything – _anything_ – goes wrong. Donghae simply hugs them all wordlessly, burying his face in Yunho’s neck in his determination not to cry. Youngwoon sees them off with a hearty, forced cheerfulness at first, but when he envelopes them all into wordless bear hugs, that’s when Jaejoong knows he really means it.

Junsu, Sungmin and Hyukjae disappear together somewhere, and they come back with three sets of teary eyes. Junsu is smiling though, in spite of his tears, and Jaejoong takes it for what it’s worth.

Eventually, Jaejoong finds himself leaning against the wall, looking at the proceedings, shoulder to shoulder with Geng.

“I’ll miss you,” Geng says quietly, simply.

Something in Jaejoong’s throat closes up. He wants to say something like you’ll join us soon, don’t worry. I didn’t want this to happen. We’ll come back.

He struggles as much as Geng does to speak. “I’m sorry you have to cook for so many of them by yourself.”

Han Geng lowers his head. His hand finds Jaejoong’s and squeezes warmth into Jaejoong’s cold hands. Not completely understanding why, but understanding Jaejoong doesn’t know either.


	2. Chapter 2

23\. Jaejoong thought their world had been big. From the ground, the buildings of their city really had been vast, despite the crumbling, roughly cut walls and broken down doors. Their work had been full of tall alleyways that threatened to block out the light and large enough to accommodate monsters lurking under the ground and in dark corners. With rusty iron fences stretching like fangs at the sky, even the grey concrete of the rooftops of their buildings had felt nearly limitless. 

Sitting in a silently purring car, with black windows and polished surfaces, Jaejoong watches through tinted windows as their city bleeds into a desert wasteland of sandy remnants of buildings, bent telegraph poles and old wires stretching out like fences along tufts of dried grass. They had drunk none of the sparkling liquid or water that had been offered to them in the car but, still, it's impossible to remember how or when the streets turn into smooth paths crowded with other shiny, modern cars hovering in lines, another city rising out of the ground in swathes of smooth white and green. As they step out from the car, Yunho doing so more gingerly than the others at the feel of unfamiliar earth, Jaejoong looks back along the crowded road and realises they don't know the way home.

The towering skyscraper, like all the other towers in this new city is made from something different altogether – secrets, silence and reflective glass. The large door opens to a crisp, perfectly geometrical marble lobby. They’re greeted by a smiling group of people with perfectly buttoned collars, bleached white shirts and polished cuff links. The unflappable courtesy makes them all feel awkward and they are seated in a quiet meeting room for ages before a suited officials enter to explain why they're here. 

They have become gods for a reason, the official tells them, his middle-aged face intent with purpose. This city is under siege and many of their people have been taken by the enemies. They must protect, they must rescue, they must fight. They are gods, but they are not the only ones. In return, they will be cared for and they will be rewarded.

(“Glorified foot soldiers,” Yoochun will later spit, mouth curling at the edges with fury, and Yunho will look at him with troubled eyes and say, “Chun, that’s not true-”)

“It’s going to be hard,” the official says. “Everyone is new at some point and you’re not used to being gods. We want you to think of us as a family.”

Yunho bows and thanks them politely, as though he’s been doing this all his life. Junsu smiles angelically at everyone - the official as he waves them out of the room, the _noonas_ who take them to be cleaned, polished and dressed in new, spotlessly clean outfits and the ladies who come to deliver more food that any of them have had the luxury of even dreaming of (the women croon over all of them but Junsu gets a special chocolate snuck in with his fruit platter). Yoochun is quiet. Changmin is even quieter. Jaejoong wants to run.

They are quickly moved upstairs into the tower into a large apartment that is clean, airy and bigger than both apartments in their old home combined. They will move up into larger, prettier apartments if they are successful and gain victories for the tower, the official tells them. 

"And we can tell the five of you are something special," one of their roomkeepers says with an empty, courteous smile.

They’re given three days to adjust to their new surroundings and to living with luxuries like clean clothes and sheets waiting for them every day, food readily provided every day by their smiling roomkeeper, who wheels in platters of meat, fruit and vegetables overflowing on the plate. They all expect Changmin to take to the food with relish but he is the last of them to eat each time; Jaejoong notes, worriedly, the suspicious, hard-edged gleam is back in his eyes. 

They are given briefings on their enemies - almost too many other cities to count - and overviews of different gods that the cities have recruited to fight their battles. They are accompanied around the city on the afternoon on the second day and shown the places on the fringes where the bombs of their enemies have marked the earth, though the areas are fenced off. Yunho bends down frequently, fingers brushing the ruined earth and sometimes the clean pavements of normal streets and it's something that their minders watch with a frown. Jaejoong finds himself wondering at the few quiet residents he sees during these trips, lingering by the doors and windows of their homes, their faces blank as they watch. Closer to the tower and the city becomes livelier but these people are not wild-eyed children running recklessly across alleys and jumping between buildings but sharply dressed adults in suits, their eyes just as intense as the officials and the roomkeepers'. 

They are given five separate, gigantic beds but on the second night, they pull all the thick, downy quilts and pillows to the ground and huddle together to sleep. Jaejoong wakes up to Yunho's arms around his waist, their legs tangled, Yoochun's feet in his hair, Junsu's stomach near his ear and Changmin curled up into his side and he thinks he's never been happier, even as he wrestles down the familiar twinge of guilt that the others back home are not here to share this with them. 

As the morning dawns on the third day, a trainer appears with their roomkeeper and their breakfast. He is not particularly stern-faced or muscular; nothing in his appearance telegraphs _danger_ , but there is something about his eyes that frightens Jaejoong anyway. 

“Well then,” he says, giving them an appraising look. “It’s time you learnt how to kill.”

 

24\. ‘It’s okay,’ the trainer tells them, giving the mannequin a careless punch on the shoulder. It jerks and wobbles to the right, faceless and covered in a soft plastic, ludicrously light pink. ‘These aren’t humans. They’re programmed to attack you when they’re switched on. You use knives and your powers only. You are gods; you shouldn't need anything else. See the indicator bar on its chest? When that turns red, it will be dead. Remember. I want to see red.’

They are kind enough to have prepared the arena for Yunho - a layer of dirt and sand is spread over the ground and Yunho steps onto it with bare feet. The mannequin switches on with a chilling hum, its eyes flashing as it springs into motion. Yunho raises his arms. Watching from the antechamber, Yoochun gasps, impressed and a little shocked, at how quickly the sand and dirt coalesce into a hard ball that Yunho flings onto the mannequin with the force of a landslide. The red glow of the indicator bar can be seen, even beneath the settling dust.

“Very powerful,” the trainer says slowly, appraising the damage as a curator would a fine art piece, “but not terribly subtle, Yunho-sshi. We will need to work on that in the future.”

Jaejoong gives Yunho an encouraging smile as he returns to the antechamber and Yunho smiles back with a little half-shrug and a grimace. His face is flushed with exertion but Jaejoong knows he's proud. 

The mannequin manages to stab Yoochun twice on the arm before he can conjure enough wind to push it away. He’s sweating and his eyes have a wild, panicked look to them; all the grace Jaejoong has come to associate with Yoochun has seemingly evaporated in a room full of dead air and fear.

The trainer calmly asks Yoochun what is wrong. He does not comment on the blood seeping from the wounds.

Yoochun very quietly asks whether killing is the best way, and wouldn’t it be better to capture the enemies instead of erase them?

The trainer smiles, but his eyes remain shrewd, calculating, predatory. “The key is to remember that they’re not human. None of the enemies you are fighting are really humans like us.”

Jaejoong sees Yoochun swallow. The grip on his knife tightens. The mannequin springs to life, comes hurtling towards Yoochun. Yoochun raises an arm, and the mannequin leaps into the air, spinning and jerking as a hurricane whips through the room.

A cry is building in Jaejoong’s throat as Yoochun – unaffected by the gale that’s pinning the trainer to the wall – approaches the spinning mannequin, grabs it by the neck.

The knife flashes silver. The indicator flashes red. Jaejoong realises the cry that’s dying in his throat is _‘don’t’_.

 

25\. Changmin quietly and calmly draws enough moisture from the bucket provided to create a bubble of water over the mannequin's head, drowning it with almost prodigal elegance, if not for the flailing jerking motions of the mannequin's arms as the indicator slowly drained from green to orange to red. Surrounded by the swirling tendrils of liquid, he's almost an illusion made of distorted lines, broad swathes of colour, and a pair of wary eyes.

"Well done Changmin-sshi," the trainer praises as he dismisses Changmin. "A little slow but rest assured: you will have even more water in the real world." 

Jaejoong fails. After an hour of dodging and running from the mannequin's ruthless attacks, trying in vain to recall the feeling that had produced the lightning the last time, the trainer finally tells him to stop. Blackness swallows Jaejoong’s vision immediately, and he’s only brutally jerked out of unconsciousness by the pain wrecking havoc through his muscles. He is helped out of the room by the trainer, placed against the wall to try and calm his breathing. 

To everyone’s surprise, Junsu fails as well.

He apologises repeatedly to the trainer, and the trainer shrugs. “Obviously we didn’t expect you all to be able to pass the first time around. Elemental powers are not that rare - we’ve had them before – but, with some more work, you’ll succeed at killing.”

 

26\. “Jaejoong-sshi, you can't keep dodging forever,” Sangjun-hyung says patiently as the mannequin shudders to a stop, turning limp with a clatter of plastic and metal.

Jaejoong can't find his breath through the iron ball of exhaustion in his throat. He can only look up at his trainer, all eyes.

"Time." There's no change in Sangjun-hyung’s tone, nothing to indicate any sort of frustration at the wasted 2 hours of training. Jaejoong is grateful, at least, that their training sessions were separated into private lessons, after that first session. The others do not need to witness his failure

“We'll get there eventually,” Sangjin-hyung says as they part in the hallway, squeezing Jaejoong’s shoulder before he leaves in the opposite direction.

The fingers leave bruises on Jaejoong's shoulders, the only physical hint of the warning in his words.

 

27\. Their first mission is a late afternoon ambush on an intelligence camp near the edge of the city, where abandoned phonelines and crumbling houses degenerate into weeds and snaking vines. They’re part of a company of eleven other soldiers, battle-trained and heavily armed. A reliable source informs them there was a grand total of six men inside, and Jaejoong is expecting that they will be shafted to one of the side entrances, poised to observe instead of act.

“Though some people might learn faster when they need to be good,” the commander tells them, a slight sneer curling at the edges of his lips as he looks down at Jaejoong and Junsu.

They get the six men they expected. What they’re not expecting are the bullets that hit the two soldiers who kick down the door directly through the head. No one should be rich enough to afford a handgun in these parts of the city, and no one is prepared. As the other soldiers in their company scramble for cover, Changmin sends a jet of water at the man holding the gun, but there is a responding blast of water from one of the enemies, and the forces cancel out in midair. Yoochun is throwing blasts of wind at them, the planes of his face stiff with concentration, but the gale is indiscriminate, pinning their own soldiers to the ground as well as the enemies. Yunho takes the chance to throw a knife at the shooter, Yoochun hurls a blast of wind at the knife as it flies through the air and it catches the shooter on the left shoulder. The man stumbles for a moment, blood splattering the old bricks and plants, before he points the gun in their direction.

The terror that’s hot in Jaejoong’s veins seizes him, he lets out a yell, feels a sudden brutal force emanating from him, along with a spark of something that smells like thunderstorms, and the man doubles over as though hit by an invisible fist, the gun flying from his hand. Changmin and Yunho have trapped the other water-god to the muddy ground; Yunho pulls him under the earth, face pained.

No one notices the second shooter taking aim at them from behind until Junsu sets him alight, a look of horror on his face as the man screams, dropping the gun to claw at his head. He’s dead before his smouldering remains hit the ground.

Their new apartment is two floors above their old one. Junsu is praised even by the stern-faced commander. No one has ever burned a man to death, and Junsu should be proud of what he has managed to do for the city.

The night after they return from battle, Junsu crawls into Jaejoong’s bed and curls into the small of Jaejoong’s back, shaking as he bites back the sobs and swallows them down his throat. It feels, enormously, like a loss of innocence.

 

28\. Their next few missions blur together as they invade compounds and chase rebels through the wilderness beyond the city. Yunho and Changmin figure out how to make muddy landslides as they are sent to mountainous terrains north of the city, full of blackened tree trunks. With Yoochun’s help, Junsu’s able to set fire to people halfway across barren fields where larger battles are fought. The commanders praise them openly, calling them prodigies, calling them geniuses, commending the quality of their teamwork.

There are rewards, too. They’re invited out into the rainbow-coloured lights of expensive restaurants, raucous laughter from higher-ups, and beautiful girls with glittering eyes, long eyelashes and multicoloured hair.

Jaejoong's power comes and goes. He can sometimes summon the invisible, pressuring forces that can trap an enemy long enough for one of the others to attack and, when pressured, he can even sharpen the force into something sharp enough to cause cuts, but he still can’t kill. So Jaejoong trains, and trains, and trains.

They change apartments, moving up levels so often that Jaejoong’s belongings have all grown to fit in one, easy-to-move bag. And they would already be almost at the top of this skyscraper, if Jaejoong would stop dragging them down, Sangjun-hyung says pointedly, during their ongoing training sessions. Jaejoong manages to smile at him.

 

29\. Jaejoong wakes to a muffled scream that night, not far from the foot of his bed.

The colourful neon lights shining cheerily outside bathe the struggling woman on the floor and Yunho, who is crouched next to her, in blue, purple and red. The colours of a bruise. The window is open, the curtains rippling. Yunho has a hand raised above the woman’s chest, the carpet on their floor torn into a snaking rope of fibres snaking around her arms and neck, pinning her against the floor of their room. The woman jerks. A jagged knife falls from her hand, glinting silver.

Yunho’s hand becomes a fist and Jaejoong hears the crack of bone four times, like gunshots.

“Please just leave us alone,” Yunho says, and only in his desperate voice, close to tears, does Jaejoong hear the Yunho he knows.

The woman wordlessly flings herself at the knife. Yunho grabs her left hand before she can grab hold of the handle, barely holding back a choked sob. “I don’t want to kill you.”

Jaejoong doesn’t know how, but he can see a trembling smile struggle to form on the assassin’s face. When she speaks, her voice is sandpapered with resignation. “I don’t want to kill you either.”

Jaejoong feels more than sees what happens next. The shift of space, drawn in by the lick of flame that runs along the woman’s arms (weaker than anything Junsu has ever produced but fire, nonetheless). A raised finger, pointing to Yoochun’s sleeping form. The engulfing, impenetrable wave of carpet and concrete that lashes onto the flames, tightens around her neck, extinguishes everything.

The woman stills. Yunho reaches forward and gently, gently, closes her blank, staring eyes. Lets out a shuddering breath and looks to the ceiling for answers.

And because Jaejoong is a coward and scared and sad and angry and he can’t stop shaking, he closes his eyes and pretends to sleep.

 

30\. Trapping the mannequin comes easily to Jaejoong, like he knew it would be, deep in the corner of his mind. The tiles of the walls are slightly distorted, bending at the edges, and the air trembles as though viewing the scene through a haze of heat. Jaejoong pinches the space a little tighter with his fingers, feeling the hard shape of the mannequin, a mass of cords, plastic, metal and sparks of electricity, in his palm. It’s suspended in midair, arms and legs still waving pointlessly, and Jaejoong thinks of a puppet. He could make it dance, if he wanted to…if he could make the spaces around it shift just right…

The space above the mannequin gathers, compresses, becomes a barrier against Jaejoong’s palm. You don’t need clouds to make lightning.

“Good work Jaejoong,” Sangjun-hyung’s voice seems to come from a long way away. Even echoing and distant, he sounds excited, feverish, hopeful. “Now kill it.”

_Yunho_ , Jaejoong thinks with closed eyes, pushing down on the barrier. _Yunho is not allowed to shoulder all of this alone._

He sees the flash behind his eyelids. Hears the whip-like crack. The air smells like it’s burning.

Red.

 

31\. Slowly, the whispers of the five of them begin to spread. It starts out as a conspiratorial hiss that Hyukjae tells Junsu about when he’s able to call (not often, but at least they’re allowed to take calls now) – ‘Did you know those five will trap you before the battle even begins? The fire god, his is the strongest flame we know right now. He and the wind god can set fire to commanders from the air before you even see them. The earth god will make the ground under your feet give way, even through rock. If you want any chance of winning, battle them in a desert. The water god’s even worse. One move from him and you’ll be knee deep in water from whatever source there is and at his mercy.’

They all laugh at the unnecessarily dramatic tone, Changmin jokes they should be known as the ‘gods of the east’, and they all smother him with bear hugs and kissy faces to punish him for how lame that is. To Changmin, this punishment is worse than punching him.

It’s from these rumours, however, that Jaejoong finally finds a word to define what he is. ‘The sky god. He can bring the power of the sky down on you and you’ll be dead before you can take your final breath.’

 

32\. Their next mission is an invasion of a seaside town, supposedly a meeting place for local conspirators. It’s a small operation – they’re only accompanied by two lieutenants and a commander – and the moment they step foot on the main street, their enemies – a group of beefy-looking middle aged men - prostrate themselves at Jaejoong’s feet and surrender. The commander and lieutenants lead the men away and award them with the afternoon off in the town. As they’re walking through the main road, it’s the first time Jaejoong has ever seen the look of awe on the residents’ faces as they peer cautiously from their windows and doors, fingers shyly gripping the doorframe.

The beach near the town is the most beautiful place Jaejoong has ever seen, full of sheer cliffs of ghostly rock like chalk, broad beaches, and bright blue waves lapping against the shore.

In the dusky glow of the afternoon, they walk together along the shore, an activity that quickly disintegrates into a water fight. Changmin pisses everyone off by cheating despite being told not to and dumps wave after wave on Junsu, who dries himself off with a sizzle of steam. Yunho drags Jaejoong away from the general chaos of Yoochun and Changmin trying to part the sea, using their combined powers, then shove sand down Junsu's pants. A little further along the shore, Jaejoong kisses Yunho as the sun slides down the horizon.

For a moment, they all forget.

 

33\. Two enemy groups surrender to them upon seeing their faces, and a third surrenders after Changmin surrounds them with water and Jaejoong has their leader pinned to the ground on his knees.

Jaejoong knows they shouldn’t get used to being able to avoid fighting or killing, but he’s still young and it’s easy to forget when the wonders of the newly conquered cities are opened for exploration. They wander through European cafes pretending to speak the language, explore the small backlit street stalls during humid nights in unfamiliar cities, buy cheap clothes pinned onto walls in tiny stalls, and they go to see the ocean in many forms, lashing against sheer cliffs and lapping at sprawling beaches.

Small moments of happiness are stolen between endless nights of travelling and following orders. Changmin gets his first kiss stolen by Jaejoong and earns his second one after successfully picking up a pretty girl at a bar with Yoochun’s guidance, Junsu plays football with a bunch of street kids in Montmarte without setting the ball on fire and a beaming smile on his face, and Yunho kisses Jaejoong this time, his face soft and illuminated by the lights of the Seine.

 

34\. When they get back to their apartment after an exhaustive few months on assignment, their new mission is already waiting in a pristine envelope on Yunho’s bed. Eight months in a country they’ve never heard of, acting as soldiers and leaders this time, and lessons to begin learning the language starts tomorrow morning.

 

 

35\. There are no surrenders or easy battles in the new country. The enemies fight back with steely, unwavering determination, and there are days when the mad, frantic push and pull of killing and surviving seems never ending.

Soldiers they greet in the morning and have drinks with after hours sometimes come back with half a leg and trauma in their eyes. Many don't return at all.

Jaejoong measures the days with accomplishments. A victory against a gang on the outskirts of the city, in an obstacle course of chain link fences, barbed wire and empty aluminium petrol tanks. A silent battle amidst the yawning metal grid of the gigantic city in the first of the winter chill that bites at their skin. The moment Changmin and Yoochun create a blizzard and turn the hopeless battle around. When they no longer need to yell each other’s names to communicate. There are other gods like them from both sides of the war, but none of them work like the five of them do.

There are losses, too. But Jaejoong prefers to focus on being grateful that they - all five of them - remain in one piece.

Then, one battle in a distant village housing rebels and supplies, the commander orders newly made bombs to be dropped. None of them are prepared for the force of the explosions that follow. The air reeks of death and shrapnel. The commander’s triumphant laugh scares Jaejoong more than all their past battles have.

When they return to the middle of the deserted village square, there is a dead enemy soldier at the commander’s feet and, beside the soldier, a girl begging for mercy. She looks so young.

The commander doesn’t spare her a second glance. He looks around, eyes hard, face stern. “Changmin. Take care of her.”

Changmin makes a small, choked sound at the back of his throat.

“Hyung,” he says, and his eyes plead, flicker to the girl’s face, then back. Before we became gods, before any…all of this, Changmin… Jaejoong thinks suddenly, Changmin has little sisters.

The trainer’s eyes are like river stones. Flat, hard, sharp. Promising consequences. “Junsu then.”

“No,” Changmin says. _I’ll do it_ goes unspoken.

He lowers the sphere of water on the girl’s head like a gift, a baptism from which she never resurfaces. Changmin is crying. 

 

36\. Jaejoong’s staring blankly out at the rainstorm, illuminating unfamiliar city lights (smaller and dimmer now that they’re so high up in this apartment), when Changmin sits down and lays a head on Jaejoong’s shoulder. Physical contact with Changmin is rare. Physical contact initiated by Changmin is even rarer. Part of Jaejoong wants to lean over and give him a hug, another part is panicking. Yunho and Yoochun have always been better with Changmin than Jaejoong, but they are in a meeting with the commanders. Hell, even Junsu is better at making crooning noises. Jaejoong settles just sitting in companionable silence, Changmin's head a warm weight on his shoulders. He waits until Changmin finally breathes, his shoulders slumping, defeated and tired, but inhaling, exhaling and time finally moves.

“You didn’t have to kill her yourself,” Jaejoong murmurs, when it finally feels safe to talk, tucking a stray lock of hair behind their maknae’s ears.

When Changmin talks, his voice is soft, sad and scratchy at the edges.

“Drowning isn’t any easier than burning or asphyxiation or landslides. It just looks the least painful to the one who’s not dying.” Changmin takes a shuddering breath. “It’s a selfish reason, nothing more.”

 

37\. Hyukjae calls them the following night. “We’re all gods now.”

“All of you?” Junsu asks.

“Thirteen of us,” Hyukjae’s laughs sound relieved. They can all hear it, even though Junsu hasn’t turned on the speaker. “Geng’s been given a new name – you have to call him Hankyung now. Heechul-hyung keeps forgetting. There are some new guys with us but they’re pretty cool. There’s so many of us we’re sharing two rooms. Great, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Junsu’s voice has gone quiet. “You guys take care. We’ll be cheering you on.”

When he lowers the phone, Jaejoong knows they’re all thinking the same thing. _It’s time you learnt how to kill._

 

38\. The next battle they win is huge and unprecedented, words like _maximum casualty rate_ being thrown around casually in their wake. They’re whisked away to the very top of their apartment that very night and allowed a day of rest before going to a formal dinner and ceremony tomorrow night as guests of honour with the important commanders, generals, and the president. None of them feel like exploring. When Jaejoong comes out of the shower, their room is full but still.

Changmin's hair is still half wet – his face is sickly pallid and he's staring up at the ceiling, intricate with carvings, taking breaths like he's still drowning in the memories of the carnage.

Yoochun is leaning against Changmin, trembling quietly with dry eyes. Junsu is leaning against Changmin's other side. The space where their arms meet is steaming just a bit. The shadows under Junsu's eyes are the darkest Jaejoong's ever seen them. Yunho's sitting cross legged, facing them, his mouth tight and strained, eyes faraway.

As tired as Jaejoong is, something feels like it inflates inside him as he closes the door behind him, like tapping into a hidden reservoir of strength. Speaking is beyond all of them so Jaejoong wordlessly towels Changmin off, making sure every inch of the maknae is dry. Changmin's hands are clammy. Junsu gets up with Changmin as though their arms have become attached, and Jaejoong ends up helping both of them into Changmin’s bed. Even with the two of them, the bed is too big and they look, for a second, like small children huddled together against the cold.

Yoochun joins them, despite Jaejoong's best efforts to tug Yoochun to his own bed. It annoys Jaejoong enough for him to rasp, “If Junsu burns the blanket, it’s your fault.” Yoochun nods and buries his head into Changmin’s back as Jaejoong dims the lights.

And finally Jaejoong approaches Yunho, but his knees give way before he can make it, so he ends up kneeling and facing Yunho instead.

He manages to mumble, “Sorry”, before Yunho leans forward and pulls Jaejoong into a hug. And Heechul would never let him live it down, but it feels for a second like the only real thing in this world of hazy cigarette smoke, booming club music and empty words which become beautiful through half-lowered eyelids. There's something fierce, solid and protective about Yunho's arms, and he holds Jaejoong as though afraid to let go. Jaejoong hugs him back, closing his eyes, drinking in the other’s presence. Yunho buries his face in Jaejoong's shoulder and, when they finally pull apart, Jaejoong pretends not to notice Yunho's eyes are wet.

 

39\. They spend the evening in uncomfortable, perfectly pressed suits which are scratchy at the neck and cuffs. Out in the battlefield, they are powerful. In this lavish room of crystal chandeliers, expensive clothes and dainty food with foreign names, they are little more than the ice sculptures at the back of the room, or the bright flowers placed in the corners.

“Yes, very valuable assets,” the commander is saying to the strategy general, his stern eyes slightly glazed with drink. The smile he attempts in their direction is still more of a sneer. “We truly believe they have the potential to expand our empire to new heights.”

Changmin leans so that he’s almost shoulder to shoulder with Yoochun, the gap between him and the interested party of officials as wide as he dares to make it. Under the table, Yunho holds Jaejoong’s hand, though his gaze never wavers from the delighted VIPs who are making his acquaintance from across the table. 

The dinner bleeds effortlessly into dark, smoky clubs full of powerful, leery men and glitter-eyed girls with long hair, sharp fingernails and honeyed smiles. Yunho navigates deftly among them like an experienced captain during a storm, Junsu beside him with shrewd eyes hidden by a blinding smile. The sounds of indulgent laughter drift up and linger, sullenly, on the ceilings. Jaejoong knows that they are protecting the rest of them, that he ought to be grateful and supportive, but he can't stop the flash of resentment he feels at the sight of Yunho's blinding (fake) smile, nor can he help noticing the hands of the guests that Yunho is entertaining, creeping along Yunho's arm, his back, his face, like snaking tendrils. It's enough to make him want to claw Yunho away from these poisonous people, consequences be damned, and enough to keep him knocking back the sickly sweet shots that the bartender keeps putting in front of him. When Yunho drops by the bar on a mission to refill a general's drink, it's enough to make Jaejoong grab him by the collar, press himself against him, and whisper desperate entreaties to go home into the crook of Yunho's neck, which he punctuates with a slow kiss along Yunho's jawline.

There's something forbidding and frightened in Yunho's eyes as he pushes Jaejoong away with one hand on his shoulder, and Jaejoong is too tired and drunk and (maybe) in love to see the eyes on him everywhere in the room as he - finally, blessedly - is ushered out the door, Yunho by his side.

40\. The next day is too soon for Jaejoong to deal with anything but a roaring hangover, but Yunho is summoned to the general's office. When he comes back, there's something broken in the spaces between them, a new consciousness in the way that Yunho speaks and looks at Jaejoong. He shrugs himself out of Jaejoong's unconscious touches, hands tense, jawline set. Sometimes, Jaejoong thinks it's fear in Yunho's eyes. Other times, it's just something cold and solid.

Yoochun murmurs reassurances in Jaejoong's ears at night in their shared bedroom, offering soft hugs and comforting through Jaejoong's fingers to numb the sting of rejection. It's for us. The commanding officer doesn't like you and we're on tenderhooks until we can win the next battle. This, too, shall pass.

It does, but it also doesn't.

 

41\. They win the next battle when the lightning Jaejoong draws down sets the place on fire and Junsu is ordered to spread it. Jaejoong spends the three days of the rest they are rewarded having nightmares about storms.

Jaejoong gasps Yunho's name when it becomes too much, and feels the shape of Yunho's palms in his, but it's Yoochun who sits with him until he can breathe again.

 

42\. “They’re sending a bunch of us down south,” Geng - Hankyung - says. Even his voice sounds exhausted. “Back to my old hometown.”

“Is that good?” Jaejoong whispers. The custom here is to sleep on the ground in the new place they’re staying and Jaejoong has to whisper so he doesn’t wake Yoochun and Yunho sleeping on either side of him.

There is such a long silence on the other end of the line that Jaejoong almost thinks Hankyung’s fallen asleep.

“I’m so tired, hyung,” Hankyung says finally. His voice teeters on the edge of defeat. Begging for an answer Jaejoong doesn’t have.

Jaejoong closes his eyes. “I know.”

 

43\. The next mission only requires Jaejoong, Yoochun, and Junsu. It’s in a small town isolated from the city by a wide, grey river. It’s filled with patchwork blanket farmland, houses with ancient wooden rafters overgrown by ivy, and a gaggle of skinny boys ready to defend it to their death.

“If you surrender now, there does not need to be any loss of life,” Yoochun says.

The tallest of the bunch steps up to them defiantly, his chin tilted high with defiance, even though he barely reaches Junsu’s nose.

“We won’t let you!” His voice is in the awkward process of breaking; a discordant jumble of thickening vocal chords mixed with the remnants of childhood. His knees are dark, and the hand holding the metal shovel is calloused. It’s so very obvious he’s terrified and helpless.

Jaejoong realises how the callouses lining his own palm have softened. Somewhere, along the way, they’ve stopped using knives. The brutal physicality of killing feels fuzzy and cushioned with time.

Junsu doesn’t even blink as he sets fire to the boy.

Jaejoong doesn’t speak to Junsu for a week. Even though their apartment is cleaned, with every wrinkle in the bedsheet set in place and every surface free of dust, a lingering smell of smoke clings to the fibres of everything.

 

44\. Yoochun sneaks out to drink. Junsu throws, “You can’t be selfish like this!” angrily at Yoochun’s face like a punch.

45\. Changmin says quietly he’s worked out how to make floods. It's meant to be a secret but it gets out anyway - it always does. The commander forces him to use it by threatening one of their own soldiers - a boy called Minho, who Changmin had taken a liking to.

A week later, when the water has finally receded, Jaejoong throws up as they’re walking through the carnage and bloated, pale bodies. Yoochun only shudders and closes his eyes.

 

46\. They return to their own city for a week after the eight month mission ends. The next one is for a year and four months.

 

47\. It’s been two years since Jaejoong last saw Yunho dance.

 

48\. Jaejoong can’t remember how to sing.

 

49\. “We need to stop doing this,” Jaejoong says. He can barely see the city lights below from the height of their apartment. They haven’t wandered through the city as them for years.

He’s standing next to Yunho and so he can feel it when Yunho stiffens, and turns to look at him.

“We can’t,” Yunho murmurs. He has an old man’s eyes, an albatross of responsibility draped around his shoulders, weighing him down. Jaejoong reads the reasons, etched one by one in the worried frown on Yunho face. They’re too powerful. There are too many risks. We could lose someone.

 

I could lose you, Jaejoong thinks. The space between their arms is wide and refusing to close. Maybe I’ve lost you already.

Jaejoong looks at Yunho’s face, lit harshly pale by the moonlight. There are lines he’s never seen around Yunho’s eyes, mouth and forehead. They will have to go and fight again in less than a day. One day soon, they will die.

Jaejoong says, “Why not?”, and Yunho’s frown deepens.

 

50\. It’s a hot, sweltering night when a company of soldiers return from a mission with five spies gagged and bound on the back of the truck.

The commander calls for Yoochun and Changmin to ‘help with the interrogation process’.

Yoochun returns with a bruise on his forehead, in one of his terrible, incoherent rages. He destroys the blanket and the cupboard by the side of his bed, then curls into the corner of the room, shaking, choking, crying, and the only word Jaejoong can make out is ‘torture’, repeated over and over.

When Jaejoong and Junsu finally manage to get Yoochun calm enough to put him to bed, Yoochun refuses to sleep next to the cold, unresponsive Changmin who has been staring at the wall the entire time.

Jaejoong is close enough to catch the glare Yoochun shoots in Changmin’s direction and the soft, bitter laugh carrying a breath of ‘puppet’.

Changmin’s eyes flicker.

“Yoochun, stop it,” Yunho says sharply.

Junsu shoots Yunho a glare that Jaejoong’s never seen before. “Is it right that he’s just tortured these people?”

Yunho’s gaze shifts to Junsu, and his expression is stern. “That doesn’t give him the right to call Min that. Min didn’t want it any more than Yoochun did.”

“We didn’t become gods for this,” Jaejoong says quietly.

Yunho rounds on Jaejoong. “And what did you expect?” his voice is bitter. “They helped us become this powerful, they’re demanding us to give in return, we’re soldiers. Did you think we would come away from this with clean hands?”

“Not this,” Jaejoong counters, his voice cracking. Yoochun lets out a dry sob, and Jaejoong can _see_ the purple-red bruises on the necks of the spies, their wild and sightless eyes as the water covers them over and over…

“We can’t defy them openly like this,” Yunho is saying, his eyes tight the way they are when he’s forcing himself to speak calmly. “There are too many people depending on us. This has to be slow, it has to be gradual, we can’t-”

“They’ll make us do it again,” Yoochun yells. Half his voice is muffled by the pillow, but Jaejoong can hear the terror.

“Do you know what the consequences of refusing would have been?” Changmin snaps, voice trembling with barely suppressed rage. “If we both refused? Do you know what they’re capable of? I did it for us because you didn’t _think_!”

Yoochun shakes his head, burying his face into the pillow. Changmin lets out a hissing profanity and walks towards the door, but it’s locked as it always is during the night. There’s nothing to do except sit on the opposite end of the room, unable to escape each other’s presences, like every other argument they’ve had.

 

51\. “We need to stop doing this,” Jaejoong says.

The general looks at Jaejoong thoughtfully. Jaejoong can’t read his eyes – they’ve become flat and washed out with time, like a print exposed too long for the sun. All the reds are pinks and the blues are cyans, and what Jaejoong once believed was fairness is amusement.

“Funny, you’re the fourth person to ask this of me today,” he says, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “But Jaejoong-sshi. You know that’s impossible.”

“Okay,” Jaejoong says, heart thudding to his throat. "Then we will stop ourselves.”

Jaejoong returns to their room. They are due to leave in five hours, for another battle. Yoochun and Changmin are sitting on opposite ends of the room. They haven’t spoken more than short, clipped sentences to each other in more days than Jaejoong cares to remember. Junsu is missing Junho and Hyukjae – Jaejoong can tell by the way he’s curled in on himself. Yunho is standing by the window, absently tracing over the list of missions that have been printed on the walls. For a moment, Jaejoong doesn’t recognise any of them.

When it all ends and Jaejoong is plagued by sleepless nights, he will go over that moment again, and again, and again. If he had sat down next to Changmin, if he had wondered more about who had asked the general for freedom, if he had gone over, ignored the forbidden and the taboo, and hugged Yunho, if he had said, ‘We need to talk’.

What Jaejoong does is lie down on his bed and close his eyes. Drifting off into sleep, still taking the presences of the other four for granted.

He wakes up the next day to a locked room. They’re not allowed to leave, and Yunho and Changmin are gone.

 

52\. “Are you ready to stop?” the speaker in the corner of the room asks.

Jaejoong presses against the door with all the power he has in his body, feeling the form of the door like a solid block that no amount of spacial manipulation or lightning can crack. He wants to pray, but he doesn’t know who to pray to. Let this work. We will get out and storm the building. We’ll grab Yunho and Changmin and we will run and get out of here. The five of us together. The five of us.

Yoochun is concentrating on the middle of the door, a compressed hurricane in the palm of his hand. It makes a sound like a chainsaw digging through wood except, of course, it can’t be wood because the same hurricane would have lacerated wood in seconds, but the door does not break.

Junsu is working on the lock. There is sweat running down his face, which tells Jaejoong that the fire is hot enough that, aimed anywhere else, it would have melted almost everything in the room. The lock does not melt.

When Jaejoong finally steps away from the door, blackness swallows his vision and, for a complete, dizzying minute, he thinks he’s gone blind.

His vision is slowly pieced back into focus from squares of nonsensical colour into Yoochun and Junsu’s faces, heavy with despair. They’re beyond hungry and beyond tired, and the immortality in their veins won’t even let them sink into death.

 

53\. “Are you ready to stop?” the speaker asks. The sunlight reaches their window, the light a bloody red.

Junsu says, “There’s a way out.”

Jaejoong hasn’t eaten in three days. He can barely muster the energy to ask, “What?”

Instead of replying, Junsu goes over to the window, silent, stiff and emotionless. There is a burst of flame that singes the window. Junsu gives the glass a push, the glass gives way, and there is a rush of cold air from outside.

“Why didn’t you do this earlier?” Yoochun rasps.

Junsu’s voice finally breaks. “If we jump, we won’t be gods anymore.”

 

54\. “Are you ready to stop?” the speaker demands.

The air from the window is sweet, welcoming and smells like freedom. Miscellaneous thoughts are running through Jaejoong’s mind. _Yunho doesn’t know how to make that bulgogi sauce Changmin loves. Mudslides aren’t effective against wind gods. Changmin asked me to make dinner that night but I was too tired. They are the strongest of all of us. Yoochun borrowed Changmin’s hairbrush and forgot to return it and now Changmin won’t have a hairbrush. I love them. Who’s going to sing cheesy songs in nonsensical languages when Yoochun’s gone? Junsu didn’t get to say goodbye to Hyukjae. Yunho never lets himself cry in front of Changmin. They’re never going to forgive us._

Jaejoong can’t recognise himself in the mirror.

“Ready?” Junsu says, taking Jaejoong and Yoochun’s hands in his own. A flare of warmth. The last time.

Jaejoong isn’t ready.

“Three, two-”

He isn’t ready, but this is their only-

“One.”

 

They jump.


End file.
